Itchy In D.c.: Mccollum And Westinghouse

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum had an itch on his back that the Westinghouse Electric Corp. could reach.

Westinghouse had an itch on its back that the Longwood Republican could reach.

Last month, they both scratched: McCollum, with a vote on a project important to Westinghouse; and Westinghouse, with a study aimed at helping McCollum save Orlando's Navy base.

This is one of those Washington coincidences that rarely make the civics books, but are permanent fixtures on the behind-the-scenes landscape here.

It involves two issues that on the surface could not seem more unrelated: the fight to save the Orlando Naval Training Center, and the construction of the $10 billion Superconducting Super Collider, a huge, underground atom-smasher near Waxahachie, Texas.

The Westinghouse Orlando division has $185 million worth of contracts tied to the super collider, and is in competition for a future super collider contract worth more than $1 billion.

The two efforts appeared to converge late last week.

McCollum's drive to save the Navy base got a boost from Westinghouse's Orlando division, which did some free consulting work for the city's base retention committee.

The super collider, meanwhile, found a friend in McCollum, who threw his support behind what turned out to be a hopeless effort to continue funding for the project. The House of Representatives voted 280 to 150 to kill the atom smasher, leaving its fate in the hands of the Senate later this summer.

In voting for the super collider, McCollum not only went against the tide in the House and broke ranks with 60 percent of the Republican Party, but switched his position from last year.

In June 1992, McCollum was one of 232 representatives voting to kill the project. The super collider had 31 fewer supporters this year than it did last year.

McCollum dismissed the suggestion that his vote-switch on the super collider was tied in any way to Westinghouse's help on the save-the-base effort. He said his vote against it last year was ''a protest vote because the project had gone over budget,'' and noted that he had voted for the super collider in previous years.

''It was purely and totally a coincidence,'' McCollum said of the timing of his latest vote-switch with the Westinghouse base closing study. ''There was never a conversation. That (the super collider vote) was never mentioned in the same breath by anybody with regard to this study.''

McCollum was desperate to save the base in his district from shutdown. He needed to show a civilian commission that moving huge training devices to Orlando from a rival Illinois base was not as hard or expensive as the Navy said it would be.

Westinghouse helped that effort, with a detailed June 10 study claiming that moving or rebuilding the so-called ''hot plants'' now at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center would cost $134 million to $148 million less than the Navy said.

''These (estimates) are miles apart,'' base-closing commissioner Harry McPherson commented when the Westinghouse numbers were presented side-by-side with Navy numbers last Saturday. ''This is unusual even in the Pentagon.''

Actually, use of the word ''hire'' was something of a stretch. The company charged the Economic Development Commission of Mid-Florida just $1 for the study.

Mid-Florida spokeswoman Melanie Forbrick, to whom Westinghouse directed all questions, said civic spirit motivated the corporate giant, which has its power generation projects division on Alafaya Trail.

Besides, she added, doing the work for virtually free lent the study more credibility. Forbrick said the consulting work, which involved having Westinghouse employees fly to the Great Lakes base to view the hot plants, would normally have cost $5,000 to $10,000.

''There was no financial interest in it for them one way or the other to sway it,'' Forbrick said.

Base-closing commissioners hinted otherwise. McPherson suggested Westinghouse might have an interest in building the $200 million to $338 million training devices, and might therefore lowball the estimates to convince the commission to consolidate naval training in Orlando.

In any event, the Westinghouse effort didn't change the outcome. Shortly after hearing the numbers, the base-closing commission voted 6-0 to shut down the Orlando base.

Despite McPherson's suggestion, an outside shot at building new Navy trainers was not at the top of Westinghouse's Washington agenda last week. The super collider was.

The collider would be a oval ring of superconducting magnets, arranged in a tunnel 250 feet underground and 54 miles in circumference - about the size of Orlando's planned beltway.